New iPad Pros arriving in days, new MacBook Pros in November

AppleInsider · October 15, 2022 5:24PM

Apple's update to the iPad Pro line will arrive within days, a report claims, while expected updates to the MacBook Pro range could land in November.

iPad Pro

Rumors have floated about Apple launching updates in its iPad and Mac lineup in October, though possibly as press releases rather than a full-blown event. According to one report, one of the announcements is certain to be for the iPad Pro range.

In an early Saturday release of the "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman writes that the new 11-inch iPad Pro and 12.9-inch iPad Pro will be announced "in a matter of days."

Codenamed J617 and J620, the tablets are said to use the M2 chip, as many rumors and speculation have forecast as the most obvious upgrade. This will apparently provide an almost 20% speed boost over the M1 equivalent.

Physically, Gurman believes the iPad Pros will have the same flat-edge design as the current iteration, continuing the four-year design since it closely aligns with other hardware in the Apple ecosystem.

Speculation about the new iPad Pro models includes the addition of wireless charging with MagSafe, new smart connectors, and an upgrade bringing mini LED backlighting to the 11-inch model.

Gurman also discusses the MacBook Pro lineup, but while they are "on track to launch in the near future," he doesn't expect a release alongside the iPad Pro. He cites how November has historically been the launch month for new Macs, including the first 16-inch MacBook Pro and the first Apple Silicon releases.

The models could chiefly gain new chips rather than a radical overhaul, with a switch to M2 Pro and M2 Max chips replacing the current M1 Pro and Max counterparts.

There is also mention of a version of the Mac mini with an M2 chip, but no details are offered about when that will launch.

Along with a new chip, the Mac mini is rumored to include an overhauled external design, complete with more ports on the rear and a plexiglass-like top cover on a thinner aluminum chassis.

Read on AppleInsider

waveparticle · October 15, 2022 5:54PM

Imagine that some Pro models have no GPS and no Wi-Fi calling.

dk49 · October 15, 2022 6:42PM

Wow no word on the base ipad? It's the most popular ipad!

tht · October 15, 2022 6:46PM

Incremental updates are some of the best updates. Too much ADD in the media space, continually looking for something fresh to talk about, and incremental updates are boring. However, they often are the most stable, most reliable type of product, especially when combined with mature software, assuming the new components are more power efficient.

For iPads, Apple has a lot of catching up to do with the software. It really should be priority number 1 to get iPadOS to be competitive to PC operating systems. Apple should not leave anything off the table. An iPad should be able to do anything a PC can do.

For this round of hardware, curious that there aren't any rumors of what type of cameras it will have. The iPhone 14 cameras are bigger, which would make for compatibility issues with the existing iPad Pro case ecosystem. The camera bump will be bigger if they have iPhone 14 cameras, with sensor shift stabilization, 48 MP sensors, etc. That means the Magic Keyboard for iPads will be incompatible. So, they won't have camera improvements? Crazy to make a product decision based on accessibility compatibility.

The iPad Pros should be landscape default devices. Front sensors along the long side. It should have 2 TB4 ports. The Smart Connector should be TB4 protocol.

AutigerMark · October 15, 2022 8:40PM

For iPads, Apple has a lot of catching up to do with the software. It really should be priority number 1 to get iPadOS to be competitive to PC operating systems.

Why? An iPad is an iPad. For what it is designed to be, it’s great. It is an easy to use and SIMPLE tablet computer. It is not, never has been, and never will be a PC. That’s what a Mac is for and Apple has stated this numerous times. Again, if you want all the PC features, go buy a Mac. Why do you want the iPad to be a PC? They are two distinctively different products.

urahara · October 15, 2022 8:47PM

tht said:

Incremental updates are some of the best updates. Too much ADD in the media space, continually looking for something fresh to talk about, and incremental updates are boring. However, they often are the most stable, most reliable type of product, especially when combined with mature software, assuming the new components are more power efficient.

For iPads, Apple has a lot of catching up to do with the software. It really should be priority number 1 to get iPadOS to be competitive to PC operating systems. Apple should not leave anything off the table. An iPad should be able to do anything a PC can do.

For this round of hardware, curious that there aren't any rumors of what type of cameras it will have. The iPhone 14 cameras are bigger, which would make for compatibility issues with the existing iPad Pro case ecosystem. The camera bump will be bigger if they have iPhone 14 cameras, with sensor shift stabilization, 48 MP sensors, etc. That means the Magic Keyboard for iPads will be incompatible. So, they won't have camera improvements? Crazy to make a product decision based on accessibility compatibility.

The iPad Pros should be landscape default devices. Front sensors along the long side. It should have 2 TB4 ports. The Smart Connector should be TB4 protocol.

Agree with you on incremental updates.

However, two TB4 isn’t something realistic at this point of time.

What’s you use case for asking the second TB4 on iPad?

They can’t get the only one TB4 to work correctly.

When you connect the iPad Pro M1 with MacBook Pro the highest speed you reach transferring files is only around 130 MB/s. And support doesn’t know about this problem and they can’t help.

With external NVME drive the iPad reaches I/O speeds of around 500 MB/s. Still just a fraction of those 40 TB/s for TB3&4.
iPad Pro M1 internal SSD Write/read Speed is Limited by about 800 MB/s (I saw this info somewhere as a result of a tear down).

Basically the TB4 port isn’t a bottleneck now.

It is:
1. Protocol connecting iPad and MBP
2. Internal SSD write/read speed of the iPad.

So how helpful would the second TB4 be if they don’t fix the problems with it first?

slow n easy · October 15, 2022 8:48PM

I could be tempted to upgrade if the camera were on the side instead of the top. For an iPad to be able to do anything a PC can do would mean a real file system. That seems very unlikely.

crowley · October 15, 2022 8:51PM

slow n easy said:

I could be tempted to upgrade if the camera were on the side instead of the top.

It’s in the corner? Just as much on the side as on the top.

tht · October 15, 2022 8:56PM

AutigerMark said:
For iPads, Apple has a lot of catching up to do with the software. It really should be priority number 1 to get iPadOS to be competitive to PC operating systems.
Why? An iPad is an iPad. For what it is designed to be, it’s great. It is an easy to use and SIMPLE tablet computer. It is not, never has been, and never will be a PC. That’s what a Mac is for and Apple has stated this numerous times. Again, if you want all the PC features, go buy a Mac. Why do you want the iPad to be a PC? They are two distinctively different products.

I want a tablet because I love touch computing. I like being able to write on it. I like using it in bed. I like using it anywhere, like in a car or waiting around somewhere.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to Unix she’ll access with it. I should be able to rely on apps to maintain state, whether it was terminated and relaunched or it is swapped out to disk. Apps should be able to run in perpetuity doing whatever they are doing.

It also doesn’t mean that a Mac and an iPad is in competition with each other. People will choose what they like. There really isn’t a need to segment iPads such that it can’t do what a Mac can. Let people compute to the fullest on the devices they want to use.

9secondkox2 · October 15, 2022 9:16PM

The MacBook pros won’t be redesigned for at least another 5 years. I don’t know why articles keep repeating that we aren’t expecting a redesign. That’s a given. The new enclosure just came out last year.

New M series chips are also a given. Apple has the capabilities to spec bump every year as they do the iPhone. The resulting pro/max/ultra/extreme chips will simply be a couple months after the iPhone launch.

charlesn · October 16, 2022 2:25AM

Apple will never do this, since they want to sell you two devices, not one. But since the M chip can run MacOS and iPadOS, it would be great to have an iPad that could boot into either operating system. When you boot into MacOS, the screen is no longer touch sensitive, and you simply operate with keyboard and mouse. This solves all issues with "How do you make MacOS a touch-sensitive OS?" When you boot into iPadOS, you have a normal iPad. Macs have been booting into MacOS or WindowsOS for how many years? This would be even easier to pull off because Apple already has the chip that can run both systems.

mattinoz · October 16, 2022 4:53AM

charlesn said:

Apple will never do this, since they want to sell you two devices, not one. But since the M chip can run MacOS and iPadOS, it would be great to have an iPad that could boot into either operating system. When you boot into MacOS, the screen is no longer touch sensitive, and you simply operate with keyboard and mouse. This solves all issues with "How do you make MacOS a touch-sensitive OS?" When you boot into iPadOS, you have a normal iPad. Macs have been booting into MacOS or WindowsOS for how many years? This would be even easier to pull off because Apple already has the chip that can run both systems.

I think more the case they want MacOS app developers to see the iPad as enough of the market to make the effort to do a proper job at supporting in turn maybe improving. modernising the Mac app as a result.

As soon as offer Mac app support on the iPad the developers will offer desktop app with no modification for the iPad touch input

CheeseFreeze · October 16, 2022 7:13AM

Looking forward to these incremental updates. They are often the best ones, reinforcing a previous major upgrade.

The iPad Pro is too expensive for me. Simple issues like having a single USB-C slot bother me when using it in a production environment where the iPad is hooked up to a digital mixer but can’t charge itself.

Although iPadOS 16 in combination with AS is breaking down some artificial walls, finally.

tbornot · October 16, 2022 4:50PM

No way should you buy the interim M2. The only reason it’s not the 3nm process is the M1 is so awful at graphics. Wait for the next one, once they have hardware ray tracing working with Metal 3 using what they learned at Blender, THAT will be the machine you want. Dare we say, GAMES!!!

Apple dislikes Microsoft. They LOATHE NVIDIA

tht · October 16, 2022 7:04PM

urahara said:

tht said:

Incremental updates are some of the best updates. Too much ADD in the media space, continually looking for something fresh to talk about, and incremental updates are boring. However, they often are the most stable, most reliable type of product, especially when combined with mature software, assuming the new components are more power efficient.

For iPads, Apple has a lot of catching up to do with the software. It really should be priority number 1 to get iPadOS to be competitive to PC operating systems. Apple should not leave anything off the table. An iPad should be able to do anything a PC can do.

For this round of hardware, curious that there aren't any rumors of what type of cameras it will have. The iPhone 14 cameras are bigger, which would make for compatibility issues with the existing iPad Pro case ecosystem. The camera bump will be bigger if they have iPhone 14 cameras, with sensor shift stabilization, 48 MP sensors, etc. That means the Magic Keyboard for iPads will be incompatible. So, they won't have camera improvements? Crazy to make a product decision based on accessibility compatibility.

The iPad Pros should be landscape default devices. Front sensors along the long side. It should have 2 TB4 ports. The Smart Connector should be TB4 protocol.

Agree with you on incremental updates.

However, two TB4 isn’t something realistic at this point of time.

What’s you use case for asking the second TB4 on iPad?

They can’t get the only one TB4 to work correctly.

When you connect the iPad Pro M1 with MacBook Pro the highest speed you reach transferring files is only around 130 MB/s. And support doesn’t know about this problem and they can’t help.
With external NVME drive the iPad reaches I/O speeds of around 500 MB/s. Still just a fraction of those 40 TB/s for TB3&4.
iPad Pro M1 internal SSD Write/read Speed is Limited by about 800 MB/s (I saw this info somewhere as a result of a tear down).

Basically the TB4 port isn’t a bottleneck now.
It is:
1. Protocol connecting iPad and MBP
2. Internal SSD write/read speed of the iPad.

So how helpful would the second TB4 be if they don’t fix the problems with it first?

Obviously, they should fix their TB4 implementation. I think it really stems from the iPad's market segmentation as a device between an iPhone and a Mac. No page file, no external storage support for awhile, no extended desktop external display support, etc. As such, they've never really needed to provide 1, 2, 3 GByte/s storage performance levels. I don't think the storage hardware is there to really support it in the M1 models. Maybe it's away to reduce power consumption. Perhaps these upcoming M2 models will.

As for 2 TB4 ports, there are a lot of situations. It's the same set of reasons why the rMB12 needed at least 2 USBC or TB3 ports. Someone wants to charge and use wired headphones, or wants to plug in an external drive, or wants to plug in a wired keyboard and mouse/trackpad.

Whatever envisioned set of workflows drove the need for 2 TB4 ports, audio port and MagSafe port for the M2 MBA should also apply for the iPad Pro. iPadOS never had the features to drive workflows requiring such ports, but it's been held back by Apple themselves, right? Fow whatever reasons, Apple's been unwilling to put the same features in iPads.

iPadOS does have a boat anchor with its heritage of UIKit apps and assumptions. That's probably why Stage Manager is so hard to do on iPadOS. A lot of apps just weren't designed with its conventions in mind, and having them run in Stage Manager sounds rather difficult to manage.

danox · October 17, 2022 2:32AM

tht said:
AutigerMark said:
For iPads, Apple has a lot of catching up to do with the software. It really should be priority number 1 to get iPadOS to be competitive to PC operating systems.
Why? An iPad is an iPad. For what it is designed to be, it’s great. It is an easy to use and SIMPLE tablet computer. It is not, never has been, and never will be a PC. That’s what a Mac is for and Apple has stated this numerous times. Again, if you want all the PC features, go buy a Mac. Why do you want the iPad to be a PC? They are two distinctively different products.
I want a tablet because I love touch computing. I like being able to write on it. I like using it in bed. I like using it anywhere, like in a car or waiting around somewhere.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to Unix she’ll access with it. I should be able to rely on apps to maintain state, whether it was terminated and relaunched or it is swapped out to disk. Apps should be able to run in perpetuity doing whatever they are doing.

It also doesn’t mean that a Mac and an iPad is in competition with each other. People will choose what they like. There really isn’t a need to segment iPads such that it can’t do what a Mac can. Let people compute to the fullest on the devices they want to use.

Buy a Microsoft Surface sounds like it would work better for you.

tht · October 17, 2022 2:41AM

danox said:
tht said:
AutigerMark said:
For iPads, Apple has a lot of catching up to do with the software. It really should be priority number 1 to get iPadOS to be competitive to PC operating systems.
Why? An iPad is an iPad. For what it is designed to be, it’s great. It is an easy to use and SIMPLE tablet computer. It is not, never has been, and never will be a PC. That’s what a Mac is for and Apple has stated this numerous times. Again, if you want all the PC features, go buy a Mac. Why do you want the iPad to be a PC? They are two distinctively different products.
I want a tablet because I love touch computing. I like being able to write on it. I like using it in bed. I like using it anywhere, like in a car or waiting around somewhere.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to Unix she’ll access with it. I should be able to rely on apps to maintain state, whether it was terminated and relaunched or it is swapped out to disk. Apps should be able to run in perpetuity doing whatever they are doing.

It also doesn’t mean that a Mac and an iPad is in competition with each other. People will choose what they like. There really isn’t a need to segment iPads such that it can’t do what a Mac can. Let people compute to the fullest on the devices they want to use.
Buy a Microsoft Surface sounds like it would work better for you.

MS Windows does not have great Unix support so it doesn’t really get me what I want, and Windows is a mistaken install of malware just waiting to happen. iPad Pros are better. They are lighter, thinner and more mobile. That this is so doesn’t mean Apple should stop.

They know they have to provide more. There’s a reason they are trying to implement Stage Manager and are introducing UI conventions for “desktop” apps.

It also doesn’t mean we don’t stop pushing Apple to provide more either. They always should strive to do better. Apple’s customer base saying so to Apple doesn’t hurt them. They really need to hear it.

mattinoz · October 17, 2022 3:08AM

tht said:

urahara said:

tht said:

Incremental updates are some of the best updates. Too much ADD in the media space, continually looking for something fresh to talk about, and incremental updates are boring. However, they often are the most stable, most reliable type of product, especially when combined with mature software, assuming the new components are more power efficient.

For iPads, Apple has a lot of catching up to do with the software. It really should be priority number 1 to get iPadOS to be competitive to PC operating systems. Apple should not leave anything off the table. An iPad should be able to do anything a PC can do.

For this round of hardware, curious that there aren't any rumors of what type of cameras it will have. The iPhone 14 cameras are bigger, which would make for compatibility issues with the existing iPad Pro case ecosystem. The camera bump will be bigger if they have iPhone 14 cameras, with sensor shift stabilization, 48 MP sensors, etc. That means the Magic Keyboard for iPads will be incompatible. So, they won't have camera improvements? Crazy to make a product decision based on accessibility compatibility.

The iPad Pros should be landscape default devices. Front sensors along the long side. It should have 2 TB4 ports. The Smart Connector should be TB4 protocol.

Agree with you on incremental updates.

However, two TB4 isn’t something realistic at this point of time.

What’s you use case for asking the second TB4 on iPad?

They can’t get the only one TB4 to work correctly.

When you connect the iPad Pro M1 with MacBook Pro the highest speed you reach transferring files is only around 130 MB/s. And support doesn’t know about this problem and they can’t help.
With external NVME drive the iPad reaches I/O speeds of around 500 MB/s. Still just a fraction of those 40 TB/s for TB3&4.
iPad Pro M1 internal SSD Write/read Speed is Limited by about 800 MB/s (I saw this info somewhere as a result of a tear down).

Basically the TB4 port isn’t a bottleneck now.
It is:
1. Protocol connecting iPad and MBP
2. Internal SSD write/read speed of the iPad.

So how helpful would the second TB4 be if they don’t fix the problems with it first?

Obviously, they should fix their TB4 implementation. I think it really stems from the iPad's market segmentation as a device between an iPhone and a Mac. No page file, no external storage support for awhile, no extended desktop external display support, etc. As such, they've never really needed to provide 1, 2, 3 GByte/s storage performance levels. I don't think the storage hardware is there to really support it in the M1 models. Maybe it's away to reduce power consumption. Perhaps these upcoming M2 models will.

As for 2 TB4 ports, there are a lot of situations. It's the same set of reasons why the rMB12 needed at least 2 USBC or TB3 ports. Someone wants to charge and use wired headphones, or wants to plug in an external drive, or wants to plug in a wired keyboard and mouse/trackpad.

Whatever envisioned set of workflows drove the need for 2 TB4 ports, audio port and MagSafe port for the M2 MBA should also apply for the iPad Pro. iPadOS never had the features to drive workflows requiring such ports, but it's been held back by Apple themselves, right? Fow whatever reasons, Apple's been unwilling to put the same features in iPads.

iPadOS does have a boat anchor with its heritage of UIKit apps and assumptions. That's probably why Stage Manager is so hard to do on iPadOS. A lot of apps just weren't designed with its conventions in mind, and having them run in Stage Manager sounds rather difficult to manage.

If Apple amped up the smart connector as a flush 4 pin magnetic attachment for better docking of iPads as rumoured then if such a connector gets at least enough speed for a decent monitor connection and 100W max PD then one on the back and maybe one on the edge would extend it to many uses cases like this. Dock/Stand/Hub that charges connects to devices as well leaving main port for the highest demand use.

Use the same ports on the MacBooks 1 side as next MagSafe and one underneath for riser dock to snap connect to laptop stands and the like.

dewme · October 18, 2022 12:21PM

There is plenty of room for Apple to improve the file and folder management of iPad without going full-blown macOS on the iPad. I’d be okay with a few tweaks in the right areas but I don’t see Apple deviating too far from their (and Steve Jobs’) vision for the iPad. The iPad is now 12 years old. Don’t you think Apple would have figured out after more than 12 years if they really should have done a Surface equivalent device, i.e., desktop crammed into a tablet form factor device?

I suppose Apple could develop an iPad that transforms into a Mac when connected to some sort of do-it-all peripheral device that has a big screen, more ports, more storage, etc. Didn’t Samsung try this? Are those things selling like hotcakes?

I’ve come around to accepting the iPad for what it is at the most fundamental level, a superb tablet. In fact, I’ll probably just stick with the base model iPad or iPad Mini from now on and put what would have been the “Pro” premium dollars toward an Apple Silicon based MacBook Air. I’d rather have two tools that are each focused on doing what they do extremely well rather than one tool that has significant compromises trying to do too many things.

New iPad Pros arriving in days, new MacBook Pros in November

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